In this video, Ghost of Christmas Present, Jalila and Shiraz get dressed up to meet the Ghost who shares the secret of how rewarding patience with silly humans can be.
It’s the Connection Training December Christmas Challenge
You may notice that Jalila is a tad less confident than usual. Our neighbors put a dirt berm along the length of my arena and the horses can’t see over it. Sometimes there are workers or deer back there and suspicion can get the best of them the best of them. As always, Jalila is braver than Shiraz (And hogs the camera! She targeted it twice while filming). Shiraz is just so sweet; they both make me laugh. All in all, we had some fun doing this and I got positive feedback from the Connection coaches.

​I made this video to enter the Connection Training November 2018 Challenge to teach your horse to Stay.
Why Stay? Horses can get stuck wanting to keep their noses with you and with the treat. Stay teaches early on that it’s ok for you to work in different positions.
It’s also a really useful exercise in teaching your horse patience and is the foundation of many of other exercises such as standing tied, being groomed and standing quietly in the horse box or trailer.
I’m looking for my horses to understand Stay, or stand still, while I move around them or walk away.
As always, working with these two horses requires different approaches for each. What is amazing to me is that Shiraz frequently offers to do things that she has observed Jalila doing. For example, I never taught Shiraz about the orange road cone target. I worked with her on a mat. (The double stay was sort of a fluke but I had it on film so I added it in.)